This incident was the first time I had met many of my partner’s friends, and boy oh boy did it leave an impression. I’m still fuming about it 2 years later!
We were invited to a wedding in a resort town that, while in the same state, is too far away for most attendees to make a day trip. It was an expensive city to stay in, so the groom’s cousin opened his home to anyone who needed accommodations. My partner and I accepted his offer very graciously along with a few other good friends of my partner. It was a great deal and they would all be able to carpool from the venue.
We arrive at house and see a couple (who are close friends with my partner and supposed to be staying at the house) speaking on the lawn. They say that we shouldn’t even go inside-that there is no way they can stay in this house and they will be staying in a motel 2 hours away from the venue. They go on to say the house is dirty beyond belief and they cannot imagine how anyone can live there and that they would never be able to sleep in that house without vomiting. We were shocked. What could be in this house that people would want to stay 2 hours away??
We walk inside to the house and find that it is…. perfectly normal. Someone obviously lived there; it wasn’t a hotel, but it was very clean, well-cared for, and they had taken pains to make sure guests would be comfortable. All personal items were tucked away out of site, every bed had new, pressed sheets, and each bedroom had extra blankets, towels and toiletries neatly arranged. It was cleaner and smarter looking than the house I grew up in. We tried to spread the word that the house was just fine but the offending couple had already called everyone else who was supposed to stay and told them not to go!!!!!
Unfortunately it didn’t stop there. Then they spent the entire wedding reception gossiping about the groom’s cousin and talking about his “pig-sty of a house.” I was furious. I didn’t know these people but they were friends of my partner so I bit my tongue and curtly said, “I think the house is very comfortable and it was very kind of him to let us stay there.” In the end, of the 8 people who were supposed to stay at the house, only my partner and I could “stand sleeping in the stable” (their words). The house became a running joke of the wedding.
After the wedding, we bought our host a lavish gift and promised to host them any time they are in our city. Crybaby that I am, I broke down weeping on the ride home and told my partner that I would never socialize with the gossiping couple again. He wholeheartedly agreed and we politely refuse any invitations they extend to us. Now I just have to avoid them at group functions. 1117-15
Tag: Guests
SusieQ, Where Do You Doo Doo?
As an over-protective pet parent, I’m very conscientious of where I bring my dog. If he’s not invited, I frequently don’t go places. (Seriously, he’s way more outgoing than I am.) So, because my little rescued dog is awesome, my sister allows dogs at her house. Seriously, my 2 year old nephew wants to be Mort and my 5 year old nephew is fine with him.
My sister just had to host her in-laws. Her step-father-in-law is okay, but her mother-in-law (Wendy) is not my favorite person. (This means I don’t get an invite to the bbq Sis hosts while they are in town. I have a total “I don’t have to go” party and have sushi and chocolate cake and Mort and I have a dance party in the living room. My poor parents have to go.)
Sis’s in-laws live in Spokane part of the year and Jacksonville the other part of the year. They drive across the country with their dog, SusieQ, and only stay at friends and family homes as they travel. (I can kind of understand that — my dog was fine in the hotel room if people in the hallway were quiet. That wasn’t a fun overnight when a drunken party came down the hall.) So, the in-laws and SusieQ arrive at my sister’s house. Sis has to host them two weeks a year as they cross the country. And did I mention the in-laws don’t like kids, or noise, or, well, anything? (I’m a single adult with no kids and wouldn’t try to stay at her house over night. Kids are loud and my sister believes that children should be less disciplined than I would prefer. They are her kids and it’s her house, so it’s her rules.)
Now, SusieQ, much like Mort, is a rescue. The story Wendy tells is that SusieQ was abused by children and can’t be left alone with them. Err, ok. My nephews are 5 and 2. They are a handful. They are all over their house and loud. This is the way Sis and BIL have raised them from day 1, so Wendy should know this by now. She constantly tells Sis to corral the boys for SusieQ’s sake. Remember, she’s getting free room and board for a week; either suck it up or stay elsewhere, right?
Well, this year brought an added twist : SusieQ is sick. How sick? Bloody diarrhea sick. Yep — poor SusieQ had bloody diarrhea in every room on the first floor of Sis’s house. Now, my heart is breaking for SusieQ as I write this. No one wants to be sick while travelling, least of all a pet. It’s just not fun. Now, I’ve mentioned I live two towns over and have an amazing vet. Sis offered to call and get his name. Her mother-in-law pooh-poohed that idea. “SusieQ will be fine”. Poor SusieQ was sick in at least three rooms as I type. My sister hadn’t analyzed the guest suite yet. You know how guest rooms are in modern houses these days — they have wall to wall beige carpet. Yikes!!!!
Sunday morning, her step-father-in-law had the car packed to drive to a friend’s house in Georgia by 6 AM. He and Sis’s Mom-in-law whined that Sis didn’t serve breakfast until 7:30 that morning. There is a 24 hour McDonald’s just down the street would have been my suggestion. (So, the in-laws are now taking the poor dog to another person’s home!!! Who does that?) I hope SusieQ makes it to her vet in Florida, but I feel badly for her and the homeowners’ carpet. 0626-15
I think this is another case of a story submitter being offended on the behalf of someone else with no evidence that the sister is similarly put out by her mother-in-law’s behavior. Dear OP, life is complicated enough without carrying the burden of being offended for someone else. In other words, MYOB.
Shawn, The Pyromaniac Housemooch
Twelve years ago my then college age daughter asked me to do a favor for a friend (not a boyfriend), a young man, ‘Shawn,’ who’d lost his home when the house he shared with several other young men burned to the ground. Could he stay the night and perhaps camp on our couch until he found his own place? We let him sleep over that night. He seemed ok. He worked in construction, was polite, he got along with me, my husband and our 12 year old son, and he could hold up his end of a conversation – an important virtue in our household. My husband is a much better judge of character then I am (he was a US Air Force brat and learned to size up people quickly because his family moved so much), so I deferred to him. He thought Shawn was OK too. A few days after Shawn came to stay with us, he was in a terrible car accident that wasn’t his fault. Someone blew through a stop sign at high speed and cut his truck in half. Shawn was lucky to be alive. Generally it takes about 8 weeks to recover from the kind of injuries he sustained and, as a family, we agreed that Shawn could stay and have the use of a guest room while he mended. We took care of him during this time. After he recovered we offered the following proposal if he was going to continue to stay with us: he could do some repairs on the property that fell within his construction skills, and pay 1/3 of the utility bill, which fluctuated, $40 to $100 per month, depending on the season. Less when we weren’t using heating or air conditioning. The heat and AC in our house is controlled in each room, so it’s not like we asked him to subsidize centralized heating and AC. Shawn accepted those terms. Repair work instead of rent, plus 1/3 of the utilities.
This wouldn’t be an etiquette hell story without things going very wrong now would it? He filled half of our 2 car garage with the contents of his storage unit – no exaggeration – floor to ceiling STUFF. He never completed the repairs, and he took it upon himself to knock down a fence because ‘it was going to fall down anyway’. He paid for his share of the utilities two times then stopped. He didn’t go back to work when he became able bodied. He didn’t need to: he got a healthy insurance settlement from the accident. He purchased 2 vehicles and took one of them apart in our drive way. Eight months after he came to us, we told him that we needed his room because my sister and her family were relocating for work and needed a place to stay (absolutely true). We gave him a month’s notice. During that month we caught him doing things like leaving up porn-ish stuff on my husband’s computer and trying to blame my son, bringing my daughter’s ex-boyfriend on to our property after being asked not to, and harassing my bi-racial niece (a college student with a full time job) about being lazy and collecting Welfare.
Once he was gone my son disclosed that Shawn like to play with fire, and had tried to get him involved with a game that involved small plastic soda bottles, gasoline, and our wood stove. We still wonder about the house fire that left him homeless. Then the phone bill came with $100 + charges for 900 numbers(phone sex). My credit card company contacted me and told me someone had tried to use my card number to buy the kinds of gadgets Shawn liked to collect. The order came from our home computer the day before Shawn left. The sale was denied. We think Shawn lifted my mail (back when your credit statement had your full account number on it). Several months on Shawn still had literally ½ as ton of junk in our garage. We moved it out and covered it with a tarp and gave him a deadline to remove it or it would go to the dump. He never came. We hauled it to the dump ourselves and paid for disposal, which is why I know there was ½ a ton of it.
At my husband’s request we took Shawn to small claims court for the unpaid utilities. We won a modest sum. I’ve never pursued Shawn for payment. Winning in court was enough. My family and I have chalked it up as a learning experience. My son learned that charming fun people may not be what they seem. We think perhaps Shawn has a personality disorder of some kind. We’ve continued to give shelter to people over the years and we are much more careful who we let stay with us.
The State of Delaware is a very small town. In the years that followed I ran into Shawn several times. Two years after the above occurred I was in a store. He didn’t see me, his back was to me and he was loudly discussing how he was messing with his current landlord. I left the store. Over the years whenever I see him I withdraw before he sees me. My son and I were in a café last year and he came in. He didn’t see us until just before we left. We listened while he talked nonstop for 10 minutes to the counter man about some money making schemes. He was still talking when we left. More recently he was at a farm auction. He said “Hi Giani.” I didn’t return the greeting. I have shunned him. I don’t know whether what I have is a classic ‘holding a grudge’ against him. I’m not angry at him. I’m not afraid of him. I never think about him when he’s not around. The best metaphor to explain how I feel about Shawn is he’s like a needy stray cat with ringworm. He’s pathetic, I need to keep my distance, and if I make the mistake of making eye contact and acknowledging him in any way, nothing good can come of it. 0410-15
Mixed Expectations
Reading about your double booked dinner guests reminded me of a similar sticky situation.
Having relocated across the country, we found we were only two hours from some old friends of ours. We hadn’t seen them in years but had sort of kept in touch with Christmas cards and social media. They’d always been great company, and we were delighted when they suggested we come over for dinner on a Saturday night. Given the length of the drive, and the fact we might have a glass or two (!), they offered to put us up for the night.
The dinner was splendid. They’d invited several local friends who turned out to be great company, the food and wine were superb and all in all, a great success.
We were the only couple staying overnight, and when we came downstairs the next morning it was obvious the hosts had gone to a lot of trouble for us – freshly baked bread, poached eggs, home made jams, all delicious. We sat and ate and chatted, all agreeing what a great time we’d had and, now that we lived close by, we could do this more often. By now it was drifting into late Sunday morning, so we started to say our goodbyes and thanks, and to make a move.
This is where it went slightly wrong. The hosts were dismayed. It turns out they’d planned an extravagant lunch for us as well. The fridge was still packed with delicious food, more than they could eat. They’d planned for us to spend the whole day with them, lunch and tea, and head off in the evening. We hadn’t expected that, and had made plans for the afternoon.
They were a bit put-out, we were a bit embarrassed, but what could we do? Fortunately the awkwardness subsided into a profusion of apologies and promising to stay longer next time. We left in a cloud of only slightly strained goodwill and bonhomie.
It’s clear there was a difference in our expectations, and it’s not going to ruin our friendship. But I’m wondering what other people’s expectations would have been? Should I have made it clear that, though we were pleased to stay the night, It didn’t mean we’d be spending the next day with them? If you’re invited to dinner, and to stay the night, is lunch automatically included? 0206-15
What a treasure to have friends whose hospitality is quite generous!
Upon accepting an invitation to be a house guest, I find it helpful to be upfront in my communication to inform my hosts when I will be arriving and departing if the invitation appears to be rather open ended. It then gives them the opportunity to appeal for you to stay longer.
Pot Luck Piracy
I love reading your site, and have learned a lot about mannerly behavior from it. So when a situation arose today that ended with my actions being labeled “rude”, I wanted to send the story in, and see if I was indeed at fault, and if so, what a better response would have been.
My family attended a potluck lunch today, and I brought a Mississippi mud cake, (one of my favorites), and was pleasantly surprised as the event was wrapping up to see that there were a couple pieces of cake left in my pan. I also noticed a certain lady, (C), sitting near the dessert table. Knowing that C makes a habit of taking things she didn’t bring home with her from potlucks, I decided to go ahead and pick up my leftovers.
As I lifted the pan off the table, C leaned in and said, “I’m taking some of that home.”
I replied, “Actually, it’s mine, so I’m taking it home. Sorry.”, and began to walk away.
As I did so, I heard C say, “Well, that was rude!” , but I didn’t know how to respond , so I just kept going.
I swear I didn’t say it meanly, or anything, but I did feel that since I paid for the ingredients and made the dessert, and because the luncheon was over, that if anybody was going to enjoy the remainder at home, it should be me and my family.
What do you think? Should I have phrased it better? Just let her have the cake? Or was I okay? I’m willing to hear whatever you have to say. 0223-15
There appears to be this presumption among certain people that once a food item appears on a potluck buffet, the owner/creator/chef loses all rights to it into perpetuity. People like C believe they are entitled to doggie bags without any reference to a courteous request to have a few leftovers. Upon seeing the cake being prepared for removal, C should have asked, “May I take a few pieces home with me? It was so good.” Instead she staked her claim of ownership with a declarative statement that challenged the OP’s right to do with her dessert as she saw appropriate. C then responds manipulatively and incorrectly with an accusation that the OP was rude–a common tactic of the clueless and entitled.
OP, you did nothing wrong. Ignoring C is definitely the best option just as it would be if one were confronted with spoiled, bratty child who made tantrums to get their way.